THE first people in line to see David Sedaris reading and signing books Sunday at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park got there at 4 a.m.

The reading wasn’t until 2 p.m.

Kent Mirkhani of Menlo Park and Michelle Venneri of Redwood City spent nine hours sprawled in front of the store’s south entrance in sleeping bags and on a mauve lawn chair.

The next people in line didn’t get there until 10:30 a.m., a full 31/2 hours before Sedaris would head to the podium to read from his recently published collection of autobiographical stories, “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” (Little, Brown, $24.95).

Sedaris no longer can be described as a cult favorite, because cult authors do not debut at No.1 on the New York Times bestseller list, as his latest book did Sunday. Still, his fans are a particularly ardent and committed strain.

About 500 people showed up at Kepler’s, more than 750 flocked to A Clean, Well-Lighted

Place for Books in San Francisco on Friday and 500 came to in Cody’s in Berkeley on Saturday night.

In addition to doing book signings, Sedaris tours each spring and fall on the lecture circuit, filling 2,000 to 3,000-seat theaters during his month-long, 30-city engagements.

He tours even if he’s not promoting a book.

“It is unusual for someone to be a writer in our culture and draw those kinds of audiences repeatedly,” says Sedaris’ lecture agent, Steven Barclay. “I would say it’s unheard of.”

Sedaris’ first taste of fame came after he appeared on National Public Radio in 1992 reading “The Santaland Diaries,” a story he wrote about being a Christmas elf at Macy’s. At the time, he cleaned houses for a living.

He’s released three previous books: “Barrel Fever” in 1995, “Naked” in 1998 and in 2000, “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Each are collections of autobiographical stories. Nothing is sacred with Sedaris; everything from peculiar family secrets to the boil on his backside — which he recently discussed with Terry Gross on the radio program “Fresh Air” — is out in the open.

He regularly tapes pieces for Public Radio International’s “This American Life” broadcast on KQED at noon Saturdays, and writes stories for the New Yorker and Esquire.

His voice — high and flat, slipping into a whine — is immediately recognizable. Many of his fans eschew the books, instead choosing audiobooks to hear the stories from the man himself.

Perhaps his distinctive delivery and recognition via radio have generated fans who want to see him as much as they want to read his books.

Marian Cavanagh of Redwood City, who arrived at Kepler’s two hours before the doors opened, describes herself as a Sedaris groupie. She’s seen him live five times, and traveled to Los Angeles for one of his lectures.

Shares his pain

“He’s an interesting combination of humor and exquisite pain,” Cavanagh said. “He has a lot of courage. He’s very vulnerable, and we all are vulnerable, so we respond to that.”

After she heard Sedaris say he’s uncomfortable with being famous, Cavanagh wrote him a limerick — about how she admired him but didn’t want to harass him — and slipped a copy of it between the pages of the volume she waited for him autograph.

Less circumspect in their adoration were four teenage girls from Los Altos.

Charline Yim, 17, wore a shirt that read “David Sedaris is my hero.” On the back was “Moi parle beau un jour,” which is “Me talk pretty one day” in poorly translated French — a nod to Sedaris’ struggles with the language.

Her friend Alia Salim, also 17, did the intentionally botched translation. “It’s supposed to be wrong,” Salim said. “What do you take six years of French for but to mistranslate writing on a T-shirt?”

“We’re all friends and we all know his books and we gossip about him and talk about him when he’s going to be in town,” said Lauren Palmor, 18.

“He’s like the Mick Jagger of authors,” Palmor said. “He’s just that cool.”

However, unlike the crowd at a rock concert, there wasn’t a crush toward the podium or any hysteria.

“In my experience the people who come to hear David Sedaris, despite the fact that their ages run the gamut, are

Sedaris is pleasant, too. Defying his caustic writing persona — a man who covets the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam (in the story “Possession”) and publicly displays embarrassing, painful details of his family life — Sedaris is, by all accounts, one of the kindest and most polite authors in the literary world. He regularly stays at book signings for hours afterward to meet each fan who comes out to see him.

Worth the wait

Back at the front of the line, Mirkhani and Venneri were getting ready to go into the store.

“We love him more than anything,” Mirkhani, 21, said.

Mirkani was introduced to Sedaris when a woman with whom he worked told him that his stories reminded her of Sedaris and gave him a copy of “Me Talk Pretty One Day.”

“I like TV, I like movies, but I’m not much of a reader,” Mirkhani said, adding that he couldn’t put the book down and has “loved” Sedaris ever since.

Although Venneri and Mirkhani brought the author a bouquet of bright pink gladioli and a letter, they didn’t have a book for him to sign.

“I can’t afford to buy one,” Mirkhani said. “My budget is very slim.”

After Sedaris spoke for an hour, reading a story from the new book as well as selections from his diary (“Harpers reports that you can sing ‘Amazing Grace’ to the tune of the theme from ‘Gilligan’s Island,’ but not the other way around”), Mirkhani gave Sedaris the flowers.

A small man with a slightly receding hairline and sharp face, Sedaris took them graciously and began to rifle through his green corduroy, brown leather-handled tote.

To thank Mirkhani, Sedaris gave him something of his own, the CD “Chet Baker Sings” and a sticker of a monk. He explained, “I got this in Thailand. It’s the ugliest person I’ve ever seen on a sticker.”

David Sedaris will return to the Bay Area next fall. He performs Nov. 7 at the Fox Theater in Redwood City and Nov. 9 at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Tickets for the Fox Theatre show are on sale for $20 to $38; visit www.ticketmaster.com or call (415) 421-TIXS. Tickets for the Cal Performances show are $20-$35 and go on sale Aug. 22; visit www.berkeley.calperfs.edu or call (510) 642-9988.

Elizabeth Jardina is a Bay Area Living staff writer. E-mail her at ejardina@sanmateocountytimes.com or call (650) 348-4327.

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